


Finding You

by PenShips



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 09:19:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8396125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenShips/pseuds/PenShips
Summary: Leonard finally discovers what Rip said to Mick when they were captured aboard the pirate time ship.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another little fic previously posted on my blog. I'm not gonna lie, I love Rip but he was kind of a real asshole to Mick. I don't remember but I think I wrote this as a response to the gang finding out who Chronos really was.

‘You should have killed me.’

The words send a cold shiver through Leonard’s soul and he closes his eyes, turning away from Mick. He can’t believe this is happening. Watching him in that cell, with each moment that passes breaks something deep inside him. With every single fibre of his being, he had intended to return for his partner and the only reason he could think why he didn’t make it back is death. Somewhere in the future, he knows he is going to die before he can return for Mick then the Time Masters will take him, pervert him and make him someone he barely recognises.

He opens his mouth, words like bile threatening to inch its way up his throat but he swallows them back down. There’s so much he wants to tell Mick; how much he loves him, how much he missed him, how lost he’d felt without Mick by his side, how lonely he realised life is without him. Leonard turns back to Mick and watches him; he looks the same more or less, just like the Mick he’d left out in the cold, like the Mick he’d been taking to execute. This Mick sneers at him, the vile promises spewing out his mouth polluting the illusion.

Leonard turns off the comms, unable to stomach the things he’s saying and walks away. This is the fourth time he’s done this in the past week. Every time, he comes to the holding cells with an entire speech prepared only to have it be tossed aside. He curls his hands into fists and angrily wipes away a stray tear falling. Leonard just has to keep trying because one day he’ll be ready to finally talk to Mick without feeling like his heart is going to cave in on itself.

Walking aimless around the time ship, thoughts of Mick clouding his vision, Leonard finds himself near the bridge where it sounds like Jax is having an argument with Rip. He is content to let whatever little tiff is going on remain between the two of them; he’s hurting too much to bother with trivial matters. Leonard intended to head back to his room, the pillow that Mick use to sleep on still smells like him and it reminds him of a simpler time. He had intended to leave until he heard Mick’s name.

Furrowing his eyebrows, he creeps closer to the bridge entrance as a knot begins to form in his stomach. He wonders briefly if Rip has changed his mind and decided it is too risky to keep Mick aboard the ship. If that’s the case, he’s prepared to fight for his partner. Leonard won’t make the same mistake twice. He’s never going to abandon Mick again.

‘-think you should apologise,’ Jax is saying.

Rip sighs deeply, clearly exasperated. ‘What’s said is said,’ he replies. ‘I was angry and upset and I thought my journey had ended where it began. I lashed out and I was wrong but I will not apologise.’

Leonard cocks his head to the side, racking his brains for some sort of a vague context to this conversation but he can find none.

‘What you said caused him-’

‘What Mr. Rory did had nothing to do with me. He’d been asking continuously to go home and it was only a matter of time before he betrayed us especially for pirates with a ride.’

‘But he wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t-‘

‘Jax! I will not stand here and argue this. What matters is we have him back and I know all too well how the Time Masters can twist and delude people. We’ll help Mr. Rory regain his control and then take him back to his time.’

There’s a pause and then Jax speaks, a quiet sound that Leonard has to strain his ears to hear. ‘You said he was part of the team.’

‘And he is but I highly doubt Mr. Rory will wish to stay with us.’

‘Not after what you said to him,’ Jax snorts.

Finally when he can take no more of this mystery, Leonard makes his presence known, clearing his throat as he walks onto the bridge. Rip is standing over the control centre, hands firmly planted on the surface as he regards Leonard with a strange look on his face. Jax, on the other hand, looks downright embarrassed. He doesn’t once glance in his direction and Leonard’s curiosity is reaching breaking point. 

Rip moves forward, a cautious smile plastered onto his face. ‘Ah, Sna-‘

Leonard cuts him off with a heated glare and turns to face Jax. The poor kid looks agitated, he’s constantly darting his eyes from the floor to Rip but he intends to push on. Something happened between Rip and Mick and he wants to find out what. ‘What did Rip say to Mick?’

‘Snart, this isn’t necessary.’

Without even glancing in Rip’s direction, he raises a hand to silence him. ‘I was asking the kid,’ he replies. ‘So kid, what did Rip say to my partner?’

The kid chuckles nervously and takes a step back, still not fully looking at him. His eyes have been trained on Rip since he entered the room. ‘I don’t know. I…that’s really not my place to say.’

‘No,’ Rip agrees from somewhere behind him. ‘It’s mine. All I did was tell Rory the truth and unfortunately it was something he could not handle. I admit I may have delivered it harshly but the fact remains that it was the truth.’

He swivels around, the sinking feeling in his stomach returning. ‘And what exactly is the truth?’

The rogue Time Master sighs, hands moving to his forehand to rub it like he’d suddenly gotten a migraine. The sinking feeling is growing, evolving into knots in his stomach. Rip makes a few false starts before finally he sighs once more.

‘I only needed you,’ he says. ‘Mr. Rory was an unfortunate necessity in order to enlist your help. He is untrustworthy, unpredictable, unintelligent and a pyromaniac, I would never allow someone so dangerous on the team but unfortunately I had-‘

Leonard’s not sure if Rip was still speaking after those words. He’s not entirely sure either how he managed to find himself suddenly in front of him, fist colliding with his jaw. Rip reels back from the force, stumbles over his own feet and falls flat on his arse. He brings his fingers up to the quickly reddening spot and touches it gingerly. Leonard feels strangely dethatched from the situation, he wants to feel anger and hatred but all he feels is a cold numbness.

Everything starts to make sense; Mick’s worst fear had been realised and confirmed. Through all of that, Leonard did the one thing the two of them promised each other they would never do. He had betrayed the man he loved, fully prepared to kill him. Perhaps he should have, Leonard can’t imagine the torture he must have been going through thinking the one man he loved abandoned him for all those years. Bile starts to rise, inching its way up his throat and he brings his trembling hands to his mouth. His face is wet with tears. He didn’t even know when he had started crying. 

‘I…I suppose I deserve that,’ Rip nods. ‘You must understand I was angry and I thought I’d lost everything.’

‘He was already feeling like I was abandoning him for this group,’ Leonard whispers, needing to articulate his thoughts though to no one in particular. ‘That’s why he was acting that way-wanting to go home-but I know Mick and I know that would have blown over but then you tell him the one thing in his life he was always afraid of, confirmed not only what he knew people thought of him but also that he was never wanted.’

‘What is going on here?’

Sara’s voice brings him out of his daze and he steps away from Rip, drying his face with his hands before facing the assassin. She’s standing in the doorway, arms crossed, regarding the situation with an air of suspicion. Behind him, Rip manages to struggle to his feet, the bruise on his face no doubt worsening with time. Leonard’s not sure he’s going to care to explain his violent behaviour but to his surprise, Rip answers for him.

‘Just a misunderstanding, Miss Lance,’ he replies.

She furrows her eyebrows, uncrosses her arms and moves further into the room. From the corner of his eye, he can see Jax shaking his head vehemently as though trying to deter her from asking more questions. She’s too stubborn though.

‘Leonard?’

‘You heard what he said, Sara,’ he drawls, trying to mask the anger and pain he’s feeling. ‘Just a misunderstanding.’

***

He goes down to Mick’s cell immediately afterwards and watches him. The ship has transformed the once bare holding bay into a cell not unlike the ones used in prison; a small single bed in the corner, one sink and a toilet all fit into the small room. Mick is seated on the bed, head bowed but he glances up when Leonard turns on the comms, fire and hatred in his eyes. Leonard takes a deep breath; he doesn’t blame him that much now he knows what truly happened to push him over the edge. He’s not accepting what Mick did but he understands it a little better now.

‘Shut up and listen to me,’ he says when Mick springs up from the bed, no doubt ready to tell him about all the ways he’s thought about killing him. ‘When we first met, I was this scrawny kid who didn’t know what I was doing and a mouth too smart for his own good. You saved me numerous times in juvie. You didn’t have to.’

Mick clenches his teeth together and looks away, the floor in front of Leonard suddenly far more interesting. ‘I hate bullies,’ he finally says. ‘You know I do.’

He nods. Mick does hate bullies. Despite his muscular build now, Mick was picked on and humiliated in school for numerous things he couldn’t control. That’s when he’d turned to his obsession, the fire made him feel safe, welcome-something the world outside did not. Leonard’s heard the story hundreds of times, held him as he recounted it. He knows Mick’s sickness and helps him whenever he can or else it would consume him; this dependency stretches only as far as his anxiety does. 

‘I know,’ he replies. ‘Look Mick, I meant to come back for you. I did. I would never leave you. When I was holding that gun, ready to kill you-you were right, I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it because…because you’re my whole world. You’re…my best friend, my partner and I love you. I didn’t trust you with the team because I know you lash out when you’re hurt. And…,’ Leonard takes a deep breath, hands moving to rest against the glass of Mick’s cage. ‘I know you felt like I was abandoning, betraying you but-’

Mick snorts. ‘And I’m supposed to be the dumb one? You can’t see it, can you? You still can’t see it. The minute you gave me that bullshit speech about why we should jump onto this time ship, you were lost. You’re just playing so hard at being a hero. You want to do that, fine but don’t drag me into that. Don’t. The second you set foot on this ship, I’d lost the man I loved.’

‘Mick, no,’ he says, shaking his head.

‘The truth hurts, doesn’t it? Yeah well, I spent lifetimes coming to terms with the fact that I am broken; spent further lifetimes coming to terms with the fact that you would dump me the minute a better team came along for your own little agenda. You can’t see it but I have, millions of times-over and over again. Every time I close my eyes, I see it. We’re over, Snart and when I get out of here, I’m going to kill every single person on this ship.’

He recoils from the glass. His heart aching; out of all the insults and names that Mick could have called him, Snart hurts the most. ‘You’re not you,’ he says. ‘The Time Masters, they did this.’

Shaking his head, he lets out a low chuckle. ‘The Time Masters didn’t do anything but save me,’ he brings his fist to his forehead and taps it, hard. ‘I was so out of my damn mind when they found me, I couldn’t even remember my own name. I was just…,’ he takes a deep breath and looks up, straight into Leonard’s eyes. ‘…consumed by the fire. Practically burnt to a crisp but through all that, one thing remained clear-you, standing over me and pointing a gun at my head. They didn’t twist anything, they didn’t delude me. This is the real me, do you like what you see?’

‘It’s not,’ Leonard replies with conviction. ‘It’s not the real you. You’re in there somewhere Mick and I will spend whatever time I have left trying to find you.’

‘You should have killed me,’ Mick repeats. ‘You should have made sure that I was dead. You should have stomped out the fire inside me.’

Leonard, despite himself and the situation, smiles. ‘You’re in there,’ he says. ‘I know you are.’ He presses his hand to the glass again. ‘And I will find you.’

‘Good luck with that,’ he scoffs. ‘Because I’m standing right here.’


End file.
